Tucker Carlson Takes a Shot at Jon Stewart

I like Tucker Carlson, he's witty and funny. I was disappointed back in 2004 when Jon Stewart went berserk on CNN Crossfire, and ambushed Tucker and Paul Begala. I thought it was funny, in a shocking way, but way over the top. Anyway, Tucker hasn't forgotten, and in light of the the Jim Cramer smackdown, he points out some annoying things about Stewart:

Four years later, Stewart had become, if anything, even softer. Over the course of a reverential eight-and-a-half minute interview with Barack Obama six days before the election, Stewart failed to ask a single substantive question, much less venture into policy (though, as with Kerry, he did open with, “How are you holding up?”). Instead, like the cable-news morons that he often criticizes, Stewart stuck strictly to the horserace, at one point even resorting to a sports metaphor.

And he sucked up, hard. “So much of this has been about fear of you,” Stewart empathized. “Has any of this fear stuff stuck with the electorate?”

Facing puffballs like this, Obama coasted through with snippets from his stump speech. The result wasn’t simply uninformative, it was boring. Obama didn’t say a single interesting thing, and Stewart wasn’t funny.

If you didn’t actually see the show, you wouldn’t know any of this, since there is a virtual ban on critical stories about Jon Stewart in the press. Nobody in memory has received a longer free ride....

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His studio audience loved it, though that isn’t saying much. Stewart’s audience would erupt if he read the phone book, or did his monologue in German, a response that over time is a threat to any man’s soul. During many segments, Stewart’s audience doesn’t laugh so much as cheer, a distinction that would bother most comedians. Stewart keeps them around anyway. Uncritical praise corrupts absolutely.

As Stewart becomes more self-righteous, he inevitably becomes less funny. Sanctimony is the death of humor, and also of innovation. Where a show like South Park challenges its audience’s every conceivable assumption, The Daily Show has become safer than Jay Leno, pandering night after night to the converted. Can you remember the last time Stewart said anything his viewers might disagree with?

Jon Stewart Destroys Jim Cramer as a Person

The much talked about brawl between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer from CNBC aired last night on the Daily Show.

My God. I thought Cramer was going to cry. Stewart had clips of him admitting dodgy tricks that he, as a fund manager could do, in an interview from 2006. Stewart, then turned it on him, and pretty much blamed the loss of granny's 401k on Wall Street shysters such as him. Cramer started to physically shrink and mumble.

I'm not the biggest fan of Stewart, mainly because of his smugness and his kiss-ass audience. But there's no doubting he's a smart guy, and he came to the fight prepared. Cramer did not. Maybe he thought it was going to be good humored banter. It was not. I'm not sure he has his manhood left after that.

For Canadians, you can see the episode here on the Comedy Network.

ABC news has a report here: Stewart Wins Cramer Showdown